I was born in mid-80s and for the most of my life I can agree with that, although about the age 16 when I got my own computer was the time that outside world slowly closed, not completely as I really enjoy the outdoors but its fairly true for me, most of it anyways...
I'm born late 80's (88), and I spent a whole lot my life in front of my computer screen, I have few friends, but I have more the feeling that's because of the way most people think. Not because I'm in front of my computer.
I even spend a whole lotta time in front of my computer without zee intrawebs. I can't imagine how I actually did that. I remember the first things I did when I got internet.. Search for modded cars for Need For Speed road challenge
And playing checkers on MSN game zone, being in chat rooms (which closed down because of too many pedophile attacks), talking to people I don't know, meeting my first net girlfriends and meeting them in real life..
I was born in the mid 80's and I can relate to that. We had pretty much nothing as youngsters and we got by no problem. If we ever got a computer or anything, it was only ever something cheap from a carboot. The Atari 2600 was used a hell of a lot for some years!
The majority of my youth was outside making super mega stuff with useless crap. Tents with linen horses and bed sheets (I slept out in it once).
But looking back to it, I do miss it all. But I think I would be a little lost without my PC sometimes now, it becomes second nature to just come online and browse, or play games/sims.
Oh yea, I had a kettler go-cart and me and my friend would play as if we were older, making up stories.
Problem was a bit we were different in many ways. He loved music, I hated it, I loved cars, he hated them.. That's probably why we don't see each other any more, when we were kids, untill we were about 12-13 years old we saw eachother almost every day.
My children will be considered impoverished and shit because I won't be buying them consoles (especially portable ones), nor allowing them a TV in their room etc. They will have a tree house, and they will help me build it (male or female, it makes no difference to the hammer). They will fall off bicycles learning. They will be encouraged to take as many risks as possible. They will eat food they drop.
They'll hate me for it until they are older.
This is an ideal, and it's highly unlikely I'll stick with it because the local council will probably take me to court if I don't provide important necessities like X-Box equivalents.
My children? We do not have a playstation or an xBox. I do have an old Sega Genesis with Sonic and Mortal Kombat. Of course, being 7 and 4, my girls have never seen the Mortal Kombat cartridge. But the 7 year old is a wiz at Sonic. She is allowed to play for a short time and she usually plays every couple of days waiting for dinner for half an hour or so.
My 4 year old, she is capable of geting on the internet and going where ever she wants to go. She goes to Noggin, Disney, Webkinz, and all the other "kid" sites. But neither are allowed on the computer very long. It is more a winter thing since in the summers, they spend all their time outside.
Neither girl has a TV in their room. When they do watch cartoons on TV, they watch the Boomerang channel, which plays all the old cartoons from my childhood. They go wild over Tom and Jerry. They watch maybe a half hour of TV, then they are sent to do something else. Maybe another half hour later on.
My wife stays home. She does not have a paying job. Her job is to take care of the kids. Why people have kids, then send them off somewhere else to be raised is beyond me. Why would my wife get a job so that she can spend all of her pay for a babysitter? Grandma already raised her children and society today is extremely rude about how half the parents expect Grandma to babysit their children all day.
When I was a kid, my bike was my life. I left the house in the summers around 9-10 am and was expected home at 5 for dinner. After dinner, off on the bike again and I was expected back at 9-10-11, dependent on our current ages. I grew up in a neighborhood of other parents with children. Everywhere I went on we went on our bikes, we were sure to be no farther than 3 houses from someone's parents.
Today, I live out in the country. As a kid, there were probably 150 houses in the neighborhood where I grew up. My children are growing up on a dead-end country road with 4 houses right near us and 3 more down the road. That is our neighborhood. In today's world, you have to really watch out. The first house on our road, the guy is registered with Megan's Law (a law where sexual preditors have to be registered with the government/law enforcement.) No, my kids do not roam around out on the road by themselves. They stay in the yard. I would let them out in the backyard by themselves within easy view of the windows, but an incident with being scared by the neighbor's dog (he just showed up, friendly dog, but my daughter was 3 at the time) at 7 years old, she is still scared to go outside by herself. Thus, my wife or I are always outside with them.
My 4 year old does need to be reminded every time not to run with the scissors
1976 here. Out in the sticks we had an outside sodding toilet until about 1983. B&W TV until 1985 (used to go across the road and watch nana's - no point watching Batman or The Hulk in b&w). No VCR until about 1991. Got a second hand C64 in 1986 with several hundred hacked games (Fast Hack'em II FTW), which started everything Hot water & cooking via wood-stove primarily. No mains water or gas, basically existed 100% on rain water unless there was a drought (which was often) and we bought bore-water from the orchardists next door. Brothers and I made dozens of home made karts and bikes from old bits. Lost loads of skin but learned valuable engineering principles which I shall pass on to my own little Spartans.
BTW - loved every minute of it
'82 and almost everything listed applies. Although I didn't eat worms and mud pies and we had cars that had seat belts. And I had a Nintendo, ruined my life thoroughly and made me into mass murderer and psychopath. And when you think it couldn't get any worse, I decided to become an engineer!
-87 here, and most of it applies to me. Maybe because the norwegian viking spirit lives inside me Or maybe I should just blame my good parents for not letting me ruin my back and social life by sitting inside all day. But I still got into technology and work daily with computers and electronics in a major global corporation. Go figure!
I grew up in the 50-60s and relate to all of it - including worm pie yumyum .
We went to school on our own from six years old, and we walked the mile or two there and back until my parents could afford a pushbike for me.
We played Hopscotch with the girls as well as whip and top, we made slides in the snow, and raided apple orchards till we were sick.
I wore short pants till I left school (and still do whenever possible) and so did a lot of my mates.
I had one pair of shoes and wore them all the time, we had pumps not trainers then.
As above I stayed out all day long and came home after dark, and there was frost on the inside of my bedroom window in winter - which in them days winter was far longer and colder than it is now, and yes our toilet was at the bottom of the yard too... brrrr.
We did not even have a house phone till after I left school, but yet we still plenty of contact with friends and familly, and a telegram was the fastest way to get a message across the world - if you could afford it.
We played cricket and football on our street as there was few cars then (which probly expalins why we have few good sportsmen....er sportspersons now.
But seriously and I mean this, in spite of the hardship we were all much happier now.
87 here and most of this apples to me. I remember we live across a bigger quiet street where (in dry weather) at least 5 other kids where "in reach". I and my brother had a very big kettcar with two seats and 20" wheels, we managed to drive with 8 people on it. We made our own stuntshows on construction sites in the neighborhood, we got hurt and nobody was sued.
My family never owned a VCR, no PC till 2001, just got a N64 in ~1997.
Look on todays streets, how many kids will you see playing?
Bill and Ben (the flowerpot men - run the gardeners coming down the garden path)
Muffin the Mule (still illegal as far as I'm aware)
The Woodentops.
Black and white TV
That sound you used to hear from tyres on hot tarmack coming from the back of an open door bus.
Schoolgirls with navy blue knickers (I never grew out of that actually)
Frying ants and earwigs with a magnifying glass on a hot summer day
Fishing for sticklebacks with nothing more than a worm and a piece of string, (all gone now as the streams are so badly polluted)
Coachloads of working class families away to the coast on the club trip - singing Ten Green Bottles and One man went to Mow, - all the way to Cleethorpes and back.
Rusty - my pet dog.
Tasty School dinners
Playing conkers (without safety glasses) after spending hours knocking them out of a tree with a big stick that I could hardly throw.
Watching herds of cows goin through our village, off to the fields or market.
Waking up on a cold Christmas day to open a very few but very treasured presents.
Beating my three younger brother up, cos I could and cos I was bigger and better - we laugh about it now, and how they took their revenge by knocking my teeth out in a pillow fight.
Who remembers where the yellow went? and why?
Long before Holby there was Emergency Ward Ten
I could go on and on but I'm feeling quite old now.
But I'll tell you what - hard as those times were, we really were much happier in those days.
My dad went to work whilst mum stayed and saw that we were brought up happy and well balanced.
Nowadays, both parents have to work to pay the bills, and pay someone else to bring their kids up for them - this is called progress?
I'm from 90 but that sounds damn close to me. I'm pretty sure the world changed after area codes.
ACCakut has a good point, playing outside was what i did everyday and as far as i know so was everyone else, but now its more everything that used to be considered bad or unacceptable..... i think 20 years from now kids will curse every time they open their mouths( even in school) and it will be perfectly fine, fight more, kill way more.... I'm pretty sure everyone's just gonna become a big **** with no common sense. If the world doesn't end soon.lol